The Declining Face of News by AnthonyT

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

I notice that The Daily Show does a hell of a lot more fact-checking than does FauxNews.

Maybe FauxNews should change their slogan, and borrow from the office of Senator John Kyl:

"Fox News: It wasn't intended to be a factual statement."

Their loyal viewers wouldn't even object.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 7:32 AM

Jon Stewart has been pointing out for a while that the News mainly retweets twitter, blogs and youtubes.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 9:53 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

I just saw on CNN an item in the top section (The Featured Section) that said, "Watch this Royal Wedding Spoof."

That's it. That title, and a link to a video.

I'm trying to come up with a response that doesn't sound like, "Blowing things out of proportion, much?" but that's pretty much the gist.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 10:28 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

I just saw on CNN an item in the top section (The Featured Section) that said, "Watch this Royal Wedding Spoof."

That's it. That title, and a link to a video.

I'm trying to come up with a response that doesn't sound like, "Blowing things out of proportion, much?" but that's pretty much the gist.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Hello,

Perhaps if I said, "The End of Western Civilization" or some such.

But I called this "The Declining Face of the News" which seems somewhat less hyperbolic.

Perhaps you see a different proportion. Wedding spoofs on the top front page of a news source as featured news make me sad. Is that out of proportion?

Was mentioning my dismay the explosion that blew things out of frame?

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:10 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Wedding spoofs on the top front page of a news source as featured news make me sad. Is that out of proportion?

To me it is. Seems it's kind'a like saying "I saw a movie I didn't like last night. All movies are shit to me now. I'm so sad."

News outlets have to fill 24/7/365 with something, and everything can't be exactly the type of news you particularly want to see. I'm sure that there are folks who enjoy seeing a spoof of the 'Royal Wedding', since the actual event is certainly in the news now. The same folks may not be interested in the thousandth story about Libya which has nothing in it they haven't heard already.

To me, your post is kind of symptomatic of the trend, especially here in RWED, for someone to note one instance of something - be it less than absolute hard news, or prejudice against some religion or race, or action of one particular politician - and blow it into condemnation of an entire industry, class, or party.

Or maybe you just had a bad day and want to vent. In that case, step away from the computer, pour a drink, and pick up a good book.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

C'mon Geezer, it's not as if there isn't real news to report.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:46 PM

The goal of the news is to shift your focus away from building a future for yourself and others within your own life to obsessing about things beyond control and cowering under your bed in fear, or endlessly hitting the joy button until your unable to rise from your seat.

Seeing that their ability to do this with any quality has been steadily declining for decades into the total garbage that it has now become, I cannot think that a decline in the face of news would be possible. It is already the lowest form of human communication outside of reality TV.

That said, I'm ecstatic that they are shifting their focus to obsessing about Kate Middleton, because it renders them utterly useless to anyone, but I have one rather serious worry, which is I dearly hope they do not actually kill Kate Middleton, like they did Diana.

It would be nice if there could be an injunction against them annoying her, or at least a court order against them stalking her.

Speaking of which, this whole Suri stalking thing has to end. I think some media execs belong in prison over this.

ETA:

Anthony,

maybe it's time to change your signature line to something a little more snappy.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Wedding spoofs on the top front page of a news source as featured news make me sad. Is that out of proportion?

To me it is. Seems it's kind'a like saying "I saw a movie I didn't like last night. All movies are shit to me now. I'm so sad."

Or posting that someone on fff.net is "a sick fuck" and then creating a whole other post to announce that you're quitting the site. Bit out of proportion like that, eh?

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 5:02 PM

I thought Geezer left because we blocked him together with Rap in a mass argument, though he came back a little less tolerant than before. He used to be pretty mild mannered. I thought a break from FFF made you more mild ;)

Speaking of which, I'm about to take a break from FFF.

While on the subject of signatures and tags, Mike, do you seriously believe that muslims flew airplanes into buildings out of religious fanaticism? I felt pretty sure it was done on autopilot from the pentagon.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 5:36 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"To me it is. Seems it's kind'a like saying "I saw a movie I didn't like last night. All movies are shit to me now. I'm so sad." "

Hello,

Perhaps more specifically like, "I saw a movie last night where computer special effects were used in place of plot, characters, or writing. I've been noticing this trend more and more in the past several years. It's getting harder and harder to find a film that doesn't fall on the crutch of FX instead of delivering a good story. I am dismayed at this trend."

If CNN were the first and only news outlet to put non news in the place of news, I don't think I'd have mentioned it, except perhaps as a curiosity.

I did not extrapolate to all news from one CNN experience. Once upon a time, I used to try to escape this trend at CNN. Following their site redesign, they began to differentiate between news and non-news less than before. Now they seem to have abandoned any pretense whatsoever. My next step to cleaner news will be the BBC, but its coverage of the United States is somewhat narrower than I'd like. Still, they do not yet typically have entertainment videos on their front page next to news stories, and certainly don't feature them as headline news.

I'm sorry if this seems like blowing things out of proportion, or symptomatic of a trend here to extrapolate widely from singular examples. If you don't find this same trend in your own news sources, I am glad you enjoy a cleaner news experience.

--Anthony

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 6:33 PM

Quote:

I'm sorry if this seems like blowing things out of proportion, or symptomatic of a trend here to extrapolate widely from singular examples.

The proposition that your original post was blowing things out of proportion and extrapolating widespread behavior from one or a few meager examples seems to me to be the very acme of doing exactly that which you are accused of doing.

There is very little "news" on any of the "news" networks anymore, it seems. For actual "news" stories, you have to look elsewhere, occasionally deeper into the internet. Sometimes you even have to look to entertainment shows to find your real "news"...

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Saturday, April 16, 2011 6:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

While on the subject of signatures and tags, Mike, do you seriously believe that muslims flew airplanes into buildings out of religious fanaticism? I felt pretty sure it was done on autopilot from the pentagon.

I'm not really convinced it was 100% either way. I do know that certain people seem able to be convinced to do literally ANYTHING out of a sense of religious fervor and misplaced trust and conviction. Twisting a religion to nefarious purposes is as old as religion itself.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 2:00 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

DOODS, you're clearly listening to the wrong news. LinkTV carries Amy Goodman, Pacifica carries listener-sponsored radio, The Spanish-language radio carries REAL news, so does Al Jazeera, the BBC, and Russian and Chinese TV.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 2:11 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
C'mon Geezer, it's not as if there isn't real news to report.

But the 'real' news does get reported. To not find some outlet with news content that meets one's needs, one must not trying very hard.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 2:20 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think what Tony was saying is that American MSM/ Fox represents many of the worst feature of tabloid news and few of the good features of investigative reporting. If you have to go consistently out-of-country in order to learn the news, it implies that maybe you news organizations need a re-commitment to reporting "the news" to their home audience.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 2:25 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If CNN were the first and only news outlet to put non news in the place of news, I don't think I'd have mentioned it, except perhaps as a curiosity.

Not sure it's that it's "non-news", or that much of a curiosity, either. Seems more like they were just running a "human interest" story on one of the various reactions to the upcoming wedding (Did you watch the video? It's a takeoff on an earlier video of a wedding party dancing down the aisle, but done with Royal Family impersonators)
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/04/15/ctw.han.bestof.vi
ral.videos.cnn?iref=allsearch . Media have been running human interest stories since forever, or as long as I can remember, whichever is longer.

About all I can see you might complain about is the title on the CNN site, which, BTW, was gone by the time I looked for it.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 10:35 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Google: Irritainment.

Generally though, one is better off looking for news via a local source - I've found that local IndyMedia or even the Ann Arbor News isn't half bad despite a certain amount of slacker journalism.

On any national or worldwide issue, it's always best to seek out a source with some kind of vested interest, because despite the bias, or even maybe because of it, those bastards dig, and dig deep, in order to prove/disprove whatever point they're trying to make, and generally source pretty good as well - best of show is to find opposite ends of a topic and compare the accounts.

In "news" as anything else, there's this side, that side, and what really happened(1).

-Frem

(1) In-joke and dopeslap shot to Mike Rivero, that.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 1:35 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The goal of the news is to shift your focus away from building a future for yourself and others within your own life to obsessing about things beyond control and cowering under your bed in fear, or endlessly hitting the joy button until your unable to rise from your seat.

Seeing that their ability to do this with any quality has been steadily declining for decades into the total garbage that it has now become, I cannot think that a decline in the face of news would be possible. It is already the lowest form of human communication outside of reality TV.

That said, I'm ecstatic that they are shifting their focus to obsessing about Kate Middleton, because it renders them utterly useless to anyone, but I have one rather serious worry, which is I dearly hope they do not actually kill Kate Middleton, like they did Diana.

It would be nice if there could be an injunction against them annoying her, or at least a court order against them stalking her.

Speaking of which, this whole Suri stalking thing has to end. I think some media execs belong in prison over this.

isn't a constitutional right to stalk people?

Apart from that, I pretty much agree.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 3:15 PM

Religion builds schools and hospitals, science bombs them into oblivion.

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

While on the subject of signatures and tags, Mike, do you seriously believe that muslims flew airplanes into buildings out of religious fanaticism? I felt pretty sure it was done on autopilot from the pentagon.

I'm not really convinced it was 100% either way. I do know that certain people seem able to be convinced to do literally ANYTHING out of a sense of religious fervor and misplaced trust and conviction. Twisting a religion to nefarious purposes is as old as religion itself.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

Mike,

True, but I don't see that this makes religion different from any other human form of organization, corporation, govt., army, or even economy. Right now, people are willing to poison their land and their neighbors whom they've known for fifty years because a corporation has promised them a million dollars. That million may be pie in the sky, but so is 72 virgins. Both are lying to present dreams of bliss and convincing people to do unspeakable acts against themselves and their own.

IMHO, even science is not exempt from pushing people to the unspeakable. Through extensive digging I found trace christian looneyness about as much as trace nationalism in Nazis, mostly what I found was social engineering and applied science, genetics and warfare, and just inhuman industrialism. The extermination of Slavs was largely done because the Germans believed that they were inferior, and would over the years, infect the German gene pool and drag it down to the Slav level, and the same goes for Gypsies and Jews. That was science, much in the way their whole social structure was intended as a scientific design.

I mean, I get your point, I was nitpicking because I thought it was based on a media fallacy, but overall, I'm not sure. Religion's worst sin is possibly the Crusades, or to be fair, the Umayyad Jihad probably has the crusades beat cold in sheer numbers.

The worst sins of science, outside of socialism, and the holocaust(s) (and eugenics) for pure nightmare value: The atomic bomb.

I could add a tag line as I did above, but then it added it to all my posts, so I just did a little cut and paste.

ETA: Magon, I couldn't tell if that was a snark, or just pure trolling. If you're serious, I don't see any part of the constitution that protects the media's right to follow a four year old girl into her home at 1 am to take pictures of her in her pjs. I don't see that they have the right to follow anyone. No, that's not a constitutional right.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 4:52 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Re: The notion of atomic weapons as "sinful".

For me, that's not a rhetorical statement, to a degree I really do inherently and theologically believe that mankind should not, at our current level of understanding and development be messing around with "The Fire of the Gods", to begin with(1), and the whole idea of weaponising it against each other is one of the few rare things even I consider sacreligious and blasphemous.

-Frem
(1) Some folks who share similar beliefs have considered events in Japan to possibly be divine retribution for such, but I do not agree, having filed it under "shit happens", myself.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011 6:53 PM